Learning patterns/Keeping documentation of discussions with team

Learning Pattern Library

Keeping documentation of discussions with team

problemIn group projects, there can be frequent, detailed discussions. However, you may also find yourself frequently needing to revisit or otherwise remember those the discussions, which can cause loss of time and productivity during meetings or your own time.

solutionDocumentation of the discussions to be revisited for future reference, so you can have a handy reference detailing the points made previously.

creator• Soni

created on02:37, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

status:in progress

What problem does this solve?

In group projects, there can be frequent, detailed discussions. However, you may also find yourself frequently needing to mentally revisit or otherwise remember details of those discussions, which can cause loss of time and productivity during meetings or your own time.

The specific project under consideration here is Wikipedia Co-op.

What is the solution?

Key points that require documentation -

• A brief synopsis of the action plan for the entire project, that can be updated as the plan gets revised
• Listing down of the key reasonings behind the decisions made for the action plan. (e.g. Why go for a top-down approach rather than the other way round)
• A generic list of “things to keep in mind for future discussions/actions”

The key benefit this provides is a handy direction in which we need to move forward. The other consideration will be that such documentation could be revisited and provide a much easier source to explain the current structure of the Co-op design and why it behaves that way.

Things to consider

• Such a documentation could be made on a single text file and could be revised by the entire team as needed
• It could be consulted by the team every once in a while to make sure we’re on the same page on the goals and plans for the project
• When trying to explain the action plan and structure to a newer member of the team, the documentation, being rigorous, would work better than just memory
• Documentation and tables created in google spreadsheets will be a great help. The provisions for insert functions/formula and generate formatting codes for wiki tables etc. are decrease our workload. It has been used in Wikisangamotsavam's at Kerala, India.

When to use

• Anytime you have a project that has regular meetings, particularly ones that go into more detail than just a check-in.
• Whenever a new memeber comes onto the team, being able to guide them through these notes and documentarion is helpful rather than trying to recount everything on the spot.

Endorsements

• Having notes on Etherpad for the weekly meetings was really helpful during the development of Grants:IEG/Revision scoring as a service. Helder 21:09, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
• This approach has been invaluable to me in my work (on the occasions that I've been disciplined enough to follow it). Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
• Thank you for sharing this idea --Adv.tksujith (talk) 17:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• We use Etherpad and GitHub (issues & wiki) extensively among the Commons app collaborators, and I find myself being extremely grateful for that whenever I can't remember the results of a particular discussion (which is fairly often!). Misaochan (talk) 15:54, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Page 2601:245:8200:7E90:6DF0:15F3:8864:9D5D 05:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Having and agenda and documenting discussions and decisions for every meeting has proved helpful in the Web2Cit project to plan followup meetings, remember what we have done for our monthly reports, keep track of pending tasks, write abstract submissions, etc. Diegodlh (talk) 10:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

See also

Related patterns

• Cooperative note-taking at meetings and workshops
• Project roles
• Social processes within communities
• When staff work with volunteers
• Supporting volunteers in administration
• Every new page starts off unwatched